


Cocoa

by privateerwrites



Series: Musketeer March 2021 [18]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Couch Cuddles, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Genderqueer Athos, Genderqueer Character, Lemay is bi, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-27 23:48:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30130761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/privateerwrites/pseuds/privateerwrites
Summary: Musketeer March day 18- favorite side character(s)Lemay gets to meet Constance's friends, Porthos and Samara, over a meal, and then enjoys some hot cocoa with her and d'Art and Athos.
Relationships: Lemay (The Musketeers) & Constance Bonacieux, Samara Alaman/Porthos du Vallon, d'Artagnan/Athos | Comte de la Fère/Constance Bonacieux
Series: Musketeer March 2021 [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2188632
Kudos: 4





	Cocoa

**Author's Note:**

> Athos uses he/they pronouns in this fic. Yes, interchangeably, within paragraphs.
> 
> Porthos and Samara are dating.
> 
> Lemay has like 5 first names, thanks to Jack and Anima and Flower for encouraging that!
> 
> This is fluff. Enjoy!

Lemay takes a deep breath and then falls forward, flopping face first onto the couch in his apartment. Briefly, he considers calling Constance and telling her that while he'd love to get to meet Porthos and his girlfriend, he's just too exhausted from his last shift.  
  
Then he pauses, thinks about the look on Constance's face when she'd found out that he could, in fact, make it to dinner with them all, and decides that he can push through this. He peels himself off of the sofa slowly, groaning as he does so, and shuffles to the kitchen. He starts making coffee, pouring the ground beans into his filter and pouring the water in the water bank.  
  
Lemay glances at his watch and double taps his phone, set flat out on the counter. He unlocks it slowly, presses the start button on the coffeemaker, and opens his clock app. He squints at the clock on the stove for a moment before opening a new alarm. Constance had told him to be at dinner at 5. It takes fifteen minutes to get to the restaurant, adding five for traffic, that's twenty, plus thirty minutes to get dressed and look presentable...  
  
He adds it all up in his head, adds an extra 10 minutes just in case something happens, looks at the clock again, and sighs deeply. He needs to be up at 4, and it's 2:48 now. An hour and a little should be plenty of sleep, right? He chuckles a little at himself sadly, and then sets the alarm and heads to his room, tugging off his socks as he walks and practically collapsing onto the quilt.  
  
He wakes up an hour and eleven minutes later to the ringing of Dance of the Sugar Plum Faries in his ear. He scrunches his eyes, grabs at his phone, and rolls off the bed onto the floor. He lays there for a moment, enjoying his carpet, before pushing himself up to standing and flinging his closet open. He double-checks the text from Constance on dress code- nice, but not too nice- and pulls out a black t-shirt and a pair of slim khakis.  
  
"What's the weather today in Brooklyn?" he asks his phone. He's quietly informed that it is 45 and rainy and that he may want an umbrella, and he grabs his long cardigan out of the closet, too.  
  
Wandering out of his bedroom, he checks the time on his watch again- 4:15. Okay. He has time. He pours a cup of coffee into his mug (it's black and says "exactly that kind of doctor", a gift from an ex he doesn't care to think too much about, but an excellent mug) and takes a long, long drink.  
  
He polishes off that mug in short order and pours himself another, walking around and organizing everything he needs to have to leave (keys, ID, hat, phone) in the basket at the door. He throws the last of his coffee back ("Fais attention, Charles," exclaims his mother's voice in his head) and winces at the slight burn on his tongue. He shoves his feet into his shoes, using the shoehorn that Anais had bought him last Christmas, and rolls his ankles around in them for a moment before pulling his arms through his coat, grabbing his things and throwing them indiscriminately into his pockets. He unlocks the door from the inside, moving the chain and flipping the deadbolt back.  
  
He slips out the door, closing it and locking everything again. He gets halfway down the first flight of stairs before he realizes that he's left his wallet upstairs. With a resigned sigh, he turns back and jogs back up the stairs, hurriedly unlocks his door, and glances worriedly at his watch. 4:37. _Deep breaths_ , he tells himself. _Deep breaths._  
  
He grabs his wallet off the coffee table and shoves it into his back pocket, flying through relocking the door and going down the stairs as quickly as he can while still being safe- Constance will kill him if he's late because he wasn't careful on his stairs- and practically runs out the door of the apartment complex. He pulls up his hood before he can emerge fully from the cover of the roof, and when he exits to the street, he's glad he did so, because he can immediately feel the rain hammering on his head.  
  
Lemay sets off at a fast clip down the sidewalk, tucking his chin to his chest so as to keep as much of his face dry as possible.  
  
He makes it to the diner with six minutes to spare. Constance is already seated, and he goes to join her after double checking that the sign at the front of the room says "Seat Yourself". He slides in next to her when she pats the empty space next to her in the booth.  
  
"Jacques," she says, by way of greeting.  
  
"Constance," he replies.  
  
"Are you hungry?" She looks genuinely curious, as if he somehow wouldn't be. He chuckles and nods.  
  
Just then, a tall man with beautiful curly hair and a smile that makes Lemay want to smile back at him instinctively. There's a woman next to him, equally as stunning, with eyes so brown he thinks he could lose himself in them forever.  
  
He's so bi.  
  
"Porthos!" Constance cries delightedly. "Samara!"  
  
The man absolutely _beams_ at Constance, and Lemay is fighting to keep back the smile that wants to go across his face, too. He's pushed out of the end of the booth by Constance, who stands and hugs the man- Porthos- in what looks like the world's greatest hug. Lemay nods and politely reaches out his hand to shake Porthos', even though he'd like a hug, too.  
  
"François," he says.  
  
"Porthos," Porthos says, and his voice is smooth and deep and soft and Lemay thinks that he could absolutely surround himself with the sound of the voice for the rest of his life and- shit, Constance is poking him. That means he must've missed something. The girl to her side smiles and waves at him.  
  
"Samara," she tells him, inclining her head towards him.  
  
"François," he says again. "Nice to meet you."  
  
Constance gestures, and they all slide into the booth, Lemay on the inside this time, sitting across from Samara, Constance on the outside across from Porthos.  
  
They open their menus and look at them, and Lemay is saved from being incredibly distracted by the very beautiful person sitting across from him for a moment. He settles on a grilled chicken salad pretty quickly, but keeps the menu in front of his face so that he has a few more minutes to school his face into something more neutral than total awe at two of the most beautiful people he's ever seen.  
  
Eventually, though, he has to put the menu down and actually talk, which, at first, is a little overwhelming. He's mostly running on caffeine and a desire to make Constance happy at this point, and while he loves new people, he also loves sleep. At some point, though, Samara mentions that she teaches Arabic, specifically Arabic literature and poetry of the 10th and 11th centuries, and then they're off, talking a mile a minute, exchanging facts about literature and medicine and inventions, and Lemay finds himself falling a little in love with her, the way that Constance's friend Aramis does with everyone he meets, like a tornado that never stops.  
  
They pause in their conversation when food comes, and only then does Lemay realize that Porthos and Constance were not, as he initially assumed, holding their own conversation, but were instead listening to him and Samara rambling together.  
  
He opens his mouth to apologize, or at least attempt to start a conversation with Porthos to make up for the fact that he had entirely ignored the man for the better part of twenty minutes.  
  
"Don't," Constance says, before he can start apologizing. "Don't bother. We're enjoying it." A quick glance at Porthos' face says that he is, in fact, enjoying listening to them talk.  
  
The salad in front of him look delicious, and Lemay tucks in, starving now that he's had a moment to think about it and has food in front of him. The chicken is excellent, tender and well-seasoned, and Constance passes him a couple of her fries. He smiles at her and eats them quickly, before she changes her mind.  
  
He is done eating before everyone else, and slowly, conversation builds back up again as the others slow their pace. He hears about Porthos' kindergarten students, about how Constance's day at the drapery went, about how Samara's students seem to think that grammar isn't a necessary part of an essay.  
  
He tells them in turn about his rotation, about the woman who was declared safe to go home and about the teenager whose friends were finally allowed to visit. They smile, and he smiles, and suddenly it's like he's known them for years.  
  
They get pie- Samara has lemon meringue, Porthos has chocolate peanut butter, Constance has blueberry, and he has banana cream- and when Lemay finishes his slice and looks down at his watch, he notices that it’s been two and a half hours since they arrived.  
  
Constance insists on paying the bill, and nobody puts up too much of a fight. They slide out of the booth and wander outside together. The rain has stopped, and it is almost dark. It's settled into that comfortable half-light where everything is fuzzy and soft and kind of warm, and Lemay sinks in closer to Samara's side as she tells him about one of her grad students and the work they're doing on translating and interpreting a poem- honestly, he only understands about 70%, but he's more listening to the excitement in her voice, the joy and the pride she conveys through her speech patterns, and the sheer love she has for her subject. They stop just outside the subway station that goes uptown and exchange numbers. Samara and Porthos head down the stairs, and Lemay and Constance wave to them from the top.  
  
They turn to head back the way they came, towards the apartment complex, and Constance slips her arm through Lemay's.  
  
"Aren't you glad you came instead of sleeping?"  
  
And yeah, he is glad he came, but now that she's mentioned it, Lemay does notice for the first time since arriving at the diner just how tired he is. Constance smiles at him.  
  
"I'm glad you came. That was fun."  
  
He nods. "Thank you," he says. He means a lot more than just a simple "thank you for dinner", but right now he can't articulate that. Constance knows, anyway. She's good like that.

  
"Do you want to come to my place," she asks softly, and Lemay pauses, thinks for a second, and upon remembering that he actually has the next week off, grins.  
  
"I'd love to," he says.  
  
"Hot cocoa?"  
  
"Only if Athos is making it," he tells her, and they both laugh. Constance can do many, many things, but making hot coca from scratch is not one of them.  
  
They walk to her apartment, and Constance unlocks the door and opens it to the smell of bread baking. D'Artagnan is sitting for on the sofa, but when he hears the door open, he pops up like a little jack-in-the-box.  
  
"Edouard! Constance!" D'Artagnan always seems a bit overexcited to Lemay, a sort of hyper energy that buzzes around him nearly constantly. Still, he appreciates the enthusiasm with which d'Artagnan greets both of them, as if he knew all along the Lemay would be coming over. Constance smiles brightly.  
  
"Hello, love," she says, and wraps her arms around d'Artagnan.  
  
"Hi," he replies, and it's in a soft, gentle tone that makes Lemay feel a little like he's intruded upon something private, even though he knows that they wouldn't do it if they weren't okay with him seeing. Even so, he looks away from their hug and heads to the kitchen instead, where he can hear Athos moving bowls. The kitchen is cramped in the way that most apartment kitchen in this neighborhood are, long and thin and kind of tight, like they intend to squish everyone who enters them, and Lemay stands in the entryway to stay out of the way, looking in.  
  
"Do you need help?"  
  
Athos is crouched on the floor next to the oven, and at the sound of Lemay's voice, he stands.  
  
"No, not at all. Hello. I trust dinner went well?"  
  
Lemay smiles and nods. This is what he likes about Athos, their gentle no-nonsense manner, their kindness in skipping that part of conversation which Lemay hates most, and instead getting right to their point.  
  
Athos looks him up and down, nods and then raises an eyebrow.  
  
"Hot chocolate?"  
  
"Yes, please."  
  
Athos gestures to a stool inside the kitchen, close enough to the stove to see what he's doing, and Lemay sits.  
  
"The cardigan looks good."  
  
Lemay smiles at Athos' comment- truth be told, he'd been a little worried that it didn't go. There's a pretty orange bracelet around Athos' wrist, one Lemay hasn't seen him wear before.  
  
"Thank you. I like the bracelet," he says. Athos rubs their wrist and smiles back at Lemay.  
  
"Thank you," he says. They go to the fridge and pull out the milk, setting it on the counter next to their saucepan. He opens a cabinet and pulls down the container of cinnamon and the container of ginger.  
  
"Open the cabinet behind you, please," they tell Lemay. He does so, and reaches in to grab the cocoa and pass it to Athos.  
  
"Thank you," Athos says again. He grabs a mixing bowl and dumps in the cocoa, cinnamon, and ginger, and then stirs them together. They hold out the bowl to Lemay to smell, and he does.  
  
"Heavenly," he declares, and Athos pulls the bowl back towards himself, smiling a little. The milk is dumped into the saucepan, the flame turned up at the stove. Constance steps into the kitchen just then, and Athos immediately turns to her, as if drawn to her magnetically.  
  
"Hello, darling," he murmurs, and kisses her cheek before turning back to the cocoa. Constance pulls four mugs down from the cabinet, and sets them on the counter. Athos smiles at her, and she smiles back, and for a moment, their happiness is blinding.  
  
Then Athos turns back to the pot, and the spell is broken before Lemay is truly blinded by the beauty of their love. Athos dumps in the spices, and they grab a whisk and start moving it through the milk quickly, adding confectioner's sugar as they go.  
  
He tried to teach Lemay how to do this, once, and while Lemay didn't really retain much of it, and what he'd made was nowhere near as good as Athos', he does remember about the whisk- mostly, that Athos highly recommends it if you actually intend to drink your cocoa and not eat it.  
  
Soon enough, the drink is ready, and Athos grabs a ladle and starts pouring out cocoa. They put marshmallows in three, and hand the one without to Lemay. The small gesture, remembering that he hates melted marshmallows, warms Lemay's heart, and he takes a long sip before following Athos out of the kitchen to where the others are.  
  
They sit on the sofa together, the four of them, and there they stay for the rest of the mildly miserable New York City night, tucked up into each other and their mugs of cocoa, warmed by the company and the drinks.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos greatly appreciated!!
> 
> I'm privateerstudies on tumblr!!


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